Okay, so I had 30 minutes to work on the TSDC desk organizer build challenge. I figured the first step is to prep my stock – plane, then sand if necessary. I’m hot and grumpy. It’s like 85 to 90 degrees outside, like always, and I don’t have any fan in the shop.

But my Stanley #4 seems to be doing its job pretty well. At least, until I ran my hand over the board.

So I guess I’m going to work on cambering my blade before doing anything else. Either that or go over this board with the cabinet scraper. But with more wood to prep, I may as well take the time to do this right. Right?

No, cambering is putting the slightest bit more pressure on the blade’s corners when sharpening, so that the corners of the plane don’t leave big plough marks in the wood (as you can see in the picture above). So when you camber the blade, it has the barest curve to it – you might not even notice it with the naked eye.